‘You have my permission to stop, that’s the third time your device has pinged.’
‘Not when I’m just getting into my work!’ We’d left the door of the treatment room ajar. It was an hour later that I finally checked my mobile device. There were three texts from Prudence, each purporting to be more urgent than the previous. Leaving Charlie at rest, I decided to call Prudence. ‘Yes, yes, I see ..and you’re going along with it? I see. Umm. Well I see no reason in principal, tell me, when is this all meant to happen? Tomorrow! Charlie!’
‘Sir?’
‘Good Lord, there you are. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes Prudence.’
‘So?’
‘Buffy, our new PM, not ten days into the job, wants a working breakfast at the Park tomorrow.’
‘Well what’s wrong with the silly tart just bothering the Secretary!’
‘I say! I’ve never heard another woman, call a woman a silly tart before. I thought that was a term of endearment reserved for us chaps?’
‘Oh shut-up!’
‘Actually, she’s already done that, he said fine and that he’d put a reserved sign on a couple of the larger tables. Prue, doesn’t think he appreciates the situation and wants me to exert oversight - from 6,00am when the first chopper arrives with advanced security. Apparently they’ll all want hot coffee and doughnuts whilst they liaise with the local constabulary, the Chief Constable herself will be taking full operational control. But that’s by the by, what Prue really means is there needs to be someone there from the Park who knows how Buffy operates, someone who knows what Buffy’s idea of a working breakfast is! We shall comply, pack an overnight bag, now - if you would be so kind.’
‘What’s it got to do with me? And why tonight?’
‘Because there is money to be made.’
‘How?’
‘By keeping Buffy’s chopper on the ground as long as possible. I am hoping you will disarm everyone with your famous feminine charm - the magician requires the distraction of an alluring assistant.’
‘What, whilst you piss in the helicopter’s fuel tank!’
‘Metaphorically speaking, yes.’
After one short conversation with the Sec - intended to keep him in the dark as much as possible - need to know and all that, and after briefly reassuring Prue that I’d be prudent, we were on the road.
‘The thing is, Buffy’s idea of a working breakfast is him tucking in and barking orders between mouthfuls, better not to sit directly opposite him on these occasions.’
‘But you said he’d chided you about self-discipline, diet, exercise - needing me.’
‘Chided. I like that word. You must use it more often. Yes, Buffy has an abiding love of the full English and has had it built into his regime since university, when he added it to his school practice of an afternoon run. It’s his one hot meal of the day. I think he must have caught the habit after staying in a few old-fashioned hotels where you could order the full works, then later ask the waiter for extra toast or pinch it from your companions.’
‘Does it work?’
‘Not noticeably, but it’s the absolute belief in its efficacy that counts I suppose.’
‘Or he could just be a cheap-skate.’
‘That too.’
We rose at 5,00am the following morning to do our prep, mainly rearranging furniture according to my understanding of proxemics and Charlie’s instincts. Then, in full dress uniform, she systematically herded the police, the security detail and finally the camp followers who arrived with Buffy himself.
‘Good morning Prime Minister.’
‘Ah, Anthony, you here.’
‘Well, someone has to keep an eye on the silver, all original you know, Uncle’s crest emblazoned all over it.’
‘You forget, someone had me blackballed from that varsity dining club you all belonged to, the one where you had to pinch something to get elected.’
‘Oh yes! Happy days. How’s Carrie?’
‘You know I think she may be losing her touch, at the advance election planning meeting, she told the assembled company that if I gave her a baby and a pet dog, she could swing a dozen marginals on her own!’
‘What did the Mr Cummings and the Mr Gowing make of that?’
‘Oh, they just nodded sagely, they think she’s a bloody oracle.’
‘Well, I’ve always admired her ability to make stuff happen.’
‘Since you’re here, we plan on doing all our own media, freeze the bastards out, I’ve told people to consult you about that.’
‘Thanks very much! Ad hoc mind you, voluntary only. Contact direct. Just, no one else in the loop okay.’
‘Nice of you to clear the place out.’
‘My able assistant can do her maître d’hôtel act all day if required. So the harbour, then the hospital. Since when have you been interested in fish?’
‘Other way around, Rory and I can’t serve lunch on the ward in a plastic piny if we’re stinking of fish!’
‘Gosh, the things one has to know in your line of work.’
‘I want you in the group photo on the fish quay. Prominent local businessmen introduced to PM by local MP - and no we don’t remember each other from school and Uni.’
‘Okay, just don’t expect me to expound on fishery policy and international maritime law. Strictly speaking of course, I’m a member of the opposition and not the only one within these walls.’
‘Ha! Rat fucking.’
‘We’re both far too young, merely a legend.’
‘Word to the wise, they’ve closed that loophole in the rules and are now a little more tech savvy, so put the word around that when the annual reminder drops through the door, everyone quietly ignores it.’
‘Now then, here’s the bill for unfettered use of the Park until 6,00pm.’
‘Bloody hell!’
‘Sorry, you don’t get the twenty per cent discount until next time. Oh, and whilst we’re about it, if you want conference facilities, that is, the ballroom and the two adjoining withdrawing rooms, we’ll need a couple of weeks’ notice, we haven’t actually acquired the mobile, flat-packed TED style kit yet.’
‘You’re presuming a lot.’
‘Am I? You like cosy and discrete as much as I do. I grant you we’re never likely to be up to a G7 or a NATO summit.’
‘You might be surprised.’
‘But this year’s NATO will surely be a grand affair, seventy years and all that, you could actually hold it on board HMS Queen Elisabeth.’
‘You’d never get to the top in politics. No, no, that’ll all be very low key, all that happens at a cheap hotel conference place just off the M25, I’ve used it before. Our American cousins can wander in dazed and confused, then wander out again. Nobody, but nobody gets within a hundred miles of Portsmouth. Strictly royal standard bearers only for those two beauties.’
‘Anyway, I shall leave you now, before the other egg and fried slice go cold.’
As I wandered out, I discovered who was next in line. ‘Frimley! What on earth are you doing here?’
‘The PM asked me to join him, he’s made me an offer which I’m inclined to accept. I’m here to give him my answer. He wants me to be his special advisor on constitutional matters.’
‘How Pooterish of you.’
‘Come again.’
‘Wouldn’t do for me, I suppose I’m too much of my own man. You do realise you’ll be expected to join him in his full English? He’s not reached the toast and marmalade yet.’
‘Oh, good lord, surely not? I was rather hoping for my usual boiled egg.’
‘I rest my case.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Don’t mind me, catch you later, at the fish quay perhaps?’
As it happened, the whole day was over by 5,00pm. Buffy was last seen entering his chopper alone. The bag carriers, having elected to spend the day at the Park, decided to cram into the other conveyance, something about the smell of fish. Hence, Charlie and I could have a quite evening in, watching the reporting of the day’s events.
‘Trumpton’s detail had a female distraction too, only she was a blond. They implied they knew all about us.’
‘Inevitable I guess. Pick up any useful tips?’
‘They were really friendly, wanted me to know stuff.’
‘You’ve got the touch.’
‘Blimey! I haven’t even sorted the post.’
‘I’m not expecting anything.’
‘Crikey! Another addressed to the both of us. And it’s another invitation too.
‘Well, you’re in demand now. A key contact in the social register of everybody whose anybody.’
‘We are, “cordially invited to the opening of The New Realist Gallery... any time after 11,00am on...” what on earth is this?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘Well you usually do. Oh hang on, I’ve missed the small print “Reg. Co. Dir. Lady Victoria Herring”.’
‘Ah, so he hasn’t said anything to you?’
‘Who?’
‘Tuffy, I mean he confides more in you than me these days. That’s the Lady Victoria I was trying to steer him towards a while ago. He’s kept that dark, fifty quid says he’s the goffer on the door when we turn up.’
(End of season three – season four will commence in the New Year!)
No comments:
Post a Comment